“America’s Next Great Restaurant” is not a bad show, but it’s not a good series to watch if you’re hungry. It’s a lot like “Shark Tank” and “Dragon’s Den,” but with restaurants. The winner is set up with a three-eatery chain (in New York, Los Angeles and … Minneapolis).
It begins with product placement for KFC, Subway and Chipotle. The judges-potential investors are chefs Lorena Garcia, Curtis Stone (who turns up a short while later on “Celebrity Apprentice” as well) and Bobby Flay and Chipotle founder Steve Ells.
Its contestants are reality-show diverse:
* Fran, a WNBA champ and personal trainer from Dallas, offers something called a “sports wrap.”
* Sarah, a hot little private chef who says she serves A-list stars in Los Angeles, wants to start What’s Good, an “organic & healthy” café. She serves macaroni and cheese cupcakes.
* Sudhir is a software salesman who wants to serve Southern India cuisine.
* Jamawn, a former auto worker from Detroit, wants to sell more chicken wings and waffles.
* Jason, owner of Bully’s Burgers and Wings, says he has a secret sauce that he developed and sold throughout the country.
* Joe has three “gourmet sports bars” in L.A. called Big Wangs. Joe points out the black guy, Jamawn, is also doing wings. “That’s what they do. Wings.” Jamawn calls Joe a jerk. (If you look up Joe Barker on Google you’ll discover via TMZ he’s been sued by a Big Wangs investor, “Home Improvement” star Zachery Ty Bryan.)
* Aimee, a Jenny McCarthyish blonde with a pet-waste removal business in Colorado, want to do something called “SoupZ.”
* Stephanie, a young, skinny lawyer, wants to do “fixed-calorie” fast food.
* Alex, a restaurant manager from Marina Del Rey who sports a tiny beard and likes to wear his hat backwards, has an idea for tacos filled with lamb and chicken parmesan, among other ingredients.
* Marisa, a New York marketing director, wants to do healthy stir-fry.
* Joey, who makes his living via life insurance and estate planning, wants to hawk Saucy Balls, serving what he claims is his grandmother’s enormous three-meat balls. (I think he’s just a Pete Schwetty fan.)
* Sandy, a Kansas City bartender, wants to open a restaurant with a healthy and a not-healthy menu.
* Eric, whose wife has a bun in the oven, pitches Meltworks, a grilled-sandwich eatery.
* A fellow named Sina (could be an Iranian-American!) pitches Persian kabobs on a bun.
* Greg and Krystal, bartenders from Los Angeles, pitch Hicks, which would serve redneck comfort food.
The first episode reduces the field from 21 contestants to 10. The episode ends with a cook-off for the 10th and final slot.
It’s a watchable show but it doesn’t have Gordon Ramsay screaming. It’s likely I’ll be sticking with the all-star “The Amazing Race” at 8 p.m.
… "America's Next Great Restaurant" doesn't have the drama of a Gordon Ramsay show, but it does have a behind-the-scenes factor that is fresh enough — who knew coming up with a logo was so hard? — and the subject matter has universal appeal. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
… a high-quality reality show about creating a mid-range dining experience. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… what makes the show at least mildly interesting is that it's not always easy to predict who will make it to the next round and who will be cut. That's because "Great Restaurant" focuses as much on the business side of opening a new place as the gastronomy. …
… It’s a little entertaining to hear some of the ideas proposed by the contestants, including Meltworks, a grilled-cheese restaurant, and Limbo, a place where you can get food that’s “good’’ for you (a 400-calorie bison burger) and food that’s “bad’’ for you (a 1,000-calorie pork sandwich). …
… the contenders are a TV-friendly bunch with genuinely promising franchise ideas. Series also smartly ties into the health-conscious zeitgeist, appealing to NBC's "Biggest Loser" reality base with a mandate to find a winner with "quality ingredients and good food that everyone can afford." … admirably low on trash-TV antics …
8 p.m. Sunday. NBC.
